NCAA Approves Long-Range Penalties Based On APR Scores

Brand: NCAA Not Relaxing Restrictions On Native American Nicknames

The NCAA yesterday approved a “set of long-range penalties” based on the Academic Progress Rate (APR), which measures how schools’ teams do at “keeping recruits in school and graduating them within six years,” according to Alan Schmadtke of the ORLANDO SENTINEL. The sanctions “are to be meted out over five years of low APR rates: two years of scholarship reductions; a third year of public announcement plus more grant-in-aid reductions; practice limits for Year 4; and a postseason ban for a fifth year.” The penalties were “hashed out by the Committee on Academic Performance and will be added to sanctions already in place, the less-stiff, short-term contemporaneous penalties.” According to the NCAA, 111 out of 5,000 teams received penalties in ’06 (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 1/9). NCAA Exec Committee Chair Walter Harrison said that “‘as many as 20[%]’ of major college men’s basketball teams are likely to lose scholarships in 2008-09” (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 1/9).

NCAA CONVENTION NOTES: NCAA President Myles Brand said that the organization “won’t back off its controversial restrictions on schools’ use of American Indian nicknames and mascots.” Brand said of the Univ. of North Dakota’s legal challenge to the ban: “The NCAA will not be changing its position on this. We’ll help and work with the university if they so desire, (though) they have not shown any desire at this point” (USA TODAY, 1/9)....The NCAA yesterday approved a ten-year pilot program that “opened the door for Canadian schools to seek membership” (AP, 1/9).